22nd century

Zephram Cochrane who now is residing on Alpha Centauri sets off for parts unknown and disappears. Some thought he was testing a new engine. After an exhaustive search, it is believed that Cochrane has died. He becomes one of the most famous missing people in history.

The events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. (Note that this film apparently takes place very nearly after the fourth film, as evidenced by Scotty's complaints about repairing the ship after its shakedown cruise, which was depicted at the end of Star Trek IV. Star Trek V would then take place in early 2287, with the events of Star Trek IV spanning most of 2286, with several months passing after Kirk's return to the future to account for the preparation of the Enterprise-A and Gillian's training for her space assignment.)

The Borg Assimilate Captain Jean-Luc Picard - the Battle of Wolf 359 is fought in Sector 001. The battle results in the loss of 39 Starfleet vessels and over 11,000 lives with the borg continuing to Earth. Picard is rescued and the borg cube is destroyed via the actions of the Enterprise-D

The events of Star Trek Generations. The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) is destroyed - the stardrive section by a warp core breach; the saucer section containing the crew makes a forced landing on Veridian III. The ship is subsequently declared a total loss.

The Dominion War is fought. After devastating losses on both sides, The Dominion surrenders to the Federation. With the Klingon military in ruins, and the Cardassian Union shattered, The Federation and Romulan Empire emerge from the conflict as the only major powers with the influence to affect Alpha quadrant politics.

The events of Star Trek: Insurrection.[44] Dialogue in this film and in the DS9 finale "What You Leave Behind" place the chronology of this film as during that episode, after the final battle of the war but before the treaty signing ceremony. Most notable in the film is Worf's ability to leave the station to join the Enterprise, as well as a line about Federation diplomats being involved in Dominion negotiations, and the Federation's willingness to work with the Son'a, who are established as a Dominion ally during the war.

History of the chronology

There have been several efforts over the years to develop a chronology for the events depicted by the Star Trek television series and its spin-offs. This matter has been complicated by the continued additions to the Star Trek canon, and the scarcity of Gregorian calendar dates given in the show (stardates instead being used).

Original series

There are few references setting the original series in an exact timeframe, and those that exist are largely contradictory. In the episode, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", a 1960s military officer says that he's going to lock Captain Kirk up "for two hundred years", to which a bemused Kirk says, "That ought to be just about right". Likewise, in the episode "Space Seed", it is said that the 1996 warlord Khan is from "two centuries" ago. Both these references place the show in the 22nd century. However, in the episode "Miri", it is said that 1960 was around 300 years ago, pushing the show into the 23rd century. Finally, the episode "The Squire of Gothos" implied that the light cone of 19th century Earth has expanded to 900 light years, which seems to set the show in the 28th century; however, as light years are a measurement of distance and not time, this can be safely disregarded.

According to notes in The Making of Star Trek, the show is set in the 23rd century, and the Enterprise was supposed to be around 40 years old. Roddenberry says in this book that the stardate system was invented in order to avoid pinning down the show precisely in terms of timeframe.[46] Roddenberry's original pitch for the series dated it "'somewhere in the future. It could be 1995, or maybe even 2995".[47]

The Star Fleet Battles game was published in 1979, with a license only covering the original series. It has since diverged into an entirely separate fictional universe, new additions to which continue to be published. It does not tie into the Gregorian calendar, instead using a "Year 1" of the invention of Warp on earth. Its version of the original series backstory is

Y1 - Warp drive is developed on Earth.

Y4 - Federation is formed by Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Alpha Centauri.

Y40-Y46 - Romulan War.

Y71 - Starfleet is formed.

Y126 - The Constitution-class is launched (an upgrade from the Republic-class).

TNG era and Okuda

Press materials for TNG suggested it was set in the 24th century, seventy-eight years after the existing Star Trek, although the exact timeframe had not yet been set in stone. The pilot had wording saying Data was part of the Starfleet "class of '78". The pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", also has a cameo appearance by Leonard "Bones" McCoy, who is said to be 137.

In the last episode of the first season, the year is firmly established by Data, as 2364.[50] This implies McCoy was born around 2227, ruling out the Spaceflight Chronology-derived dating of the original series to the early 23rd century.

Zephram Cochrane invents warp drive around 2061 (in order that the SS Valiant can be constructed and go missing two hundred years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", dated to 2265; the first edition gives 2061, the second edition moves this to 2063 per Star Trek: First Contact)

the Romulan War takes place in the 2150s (approximately a hundred years before "Balance of Terror")

the Federation is formed in 2161, after the Romulan War, on the basis that "Balance of Terror" says that it was an Earth-Romulan war, not a Federation-Romulan War

the first Constitution class starship is launched in 2244, followed by the Enterprise in 2245

Kirk's five year mission lasts from 2264 to 2269, based on the assumption that the original series is set exactly 300 years after its original broadcast.

The Wrath of Khan is a sequel to the episode Space Seed, which Okuda dates to 2267. In Okuda's timeline there is a gap of eighteen years rather than the fifteen years established in dialog. The film was released in 1982, fifteen years after the episode's broadcast in 1967.

The gap between 1986's Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home (2286) and the 1987 first season of The Next Generation (2364) is 78 years by this timeline, matching early press materials.

There was a gap of 10 years between the broadcast of the last episode of TOS and the release of The Motion Picture. The film skirted round the fact the actors had aged, supposing that only two and a half years had passed since the events of the TV show. For Star Trek II, it was decided to acknowledge the reality of the ageing actors, both by setting the film some 15 years after "Space Seed", and by having Kirk worry about getting old.[52]

Within the TNG era, episodes and films are easier to date. Stardates correspond exactly with seasons, with the first two digits of the stardate representing the season number. Okuda assumes the start of a season is January 1 and the end of the season is December 31.[1]The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager television series and movies have roughly followed "real time", and are set around 377 years after their release.

Since the Chronology was published, it has been generally adhered to by the producers of the show. The film Star Trek: First Contact and prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise both revisit the early era. In First Contact, Zephram Cochrane is confirmed as having invented warp drive on Earth, but the date is moved forward slightly to 2063, and it is revealed that Earth's official first contact with an alien species, the Vulcans, took place immediately afterwards as a result of this.

Enterprise is set in the 2150s, and ties into the Cochrane backstory. The show uses the Gregorian calendar extensively, making dating easier. Its pilot, "Broken Bow", depicts first contact with the Klingons occurring much earlier than the Okuda chronology anticipated (it suggested a date of 2218, based on a line in "Day of the Dove", noting that dialog in First Contact makes this problematic). It shows the opening of the Romulan war and the start of a coalition between Earth, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar in the 2150s. The date of the founding year of the Federation, 2161, was revealed in the fifth-season TNG episode "The Outcast," based on an early draft of the Okuda timeline. The final episode of Enterprise, "These Are The Voyages...", is consistent with the establishment of 2161 as the founding year for the Federation.

No version of the Chronology or the Encyclopedia has been published since 1999. A 2006 book by Jeff Ayers contains a timeline which attempts to date all of the many Star Trek novels.[53] This timeline has The Motion Picture in 2273, to account for the two-and-a-half-year gap between the end-date of 2270 established in "Q2" and the events of the movie. The official website, StarTrek.com, still gives the date of that movie as 2271.[54]

Eugenics Wars and World War III

When the original series of Star Trek was produced, the 1990s were in the future, and so various elements of the backstory to Star Trek are set in that era, particularly the Eugenics Wars. The references to the Eugenics Wars and to a nuclear war in the 21st century are somewhat contradictory.

The episode "Space Seed" establishes the Eugenics Wars, and has them last from 1992 to 1996. Spock calls them "your last so-called World War", and McCoy identifies this with the Eugenics Wars. In the episode "Bread and Circuses" Spock gives a death toll for World War III of 37 million. The episode "The Savage Curtain" features a Colonel Green, who led a genocidal war in the 21st century. The TNG episode "Encounter at Farpoint" further establishes a "postatomic horror" on Earth in 2079.

Although the back-story of Star Trek contains numerous minor elements that did not occur in history, the Eugenics Wars marked a substantial deviation. The Voyager episode "Future's End" saw the Voyager crew time-travel to Los Angeles in 1996, which, as the Encyclopedia notes, seems entirely unaffected by the Eugenics Wars, which ended that year. The episode acknowledges the issue only by featuring a model of Khan's DY-100-class ship on a 1996 desk. [55] Khan's spaceship is another anomaly for the timeline, which has a variety of long-lost spaceships being launched between 1980 and 2100, with inconsistent levels of technology (caused by the increasing real life time and also decreased optimism about the pace of space exploration).

Greg Cox's two-book series The Eugenics Wars explains the Eugenics Wars in the context of real-life history by representing it as a secret history, and that the truth behind the various civil wars and conflicts in the 1990s was not generally known.

Cochrane

In the episode "Metamorphosis", it is stated that Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, the inventor of warp drive, disappeared 150 years ago, at the age of 87. Given Okuda's date of 2267 for that episode, this puts Cochrane's disappearance in 2117 and birth in 2030. 1980s spin-off material such as the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology posit that Cochrane was from Alpha Centauri originally, and that a sub-warp ship the UNSS Icarus arrived at Alpha Centauri in 2048 to find he had discovered the theory behind warp drive. The Icarus then relayed its findings back to Earth, the first prototype warp ship was launched in 2055.

The Star Trek Chronology does not hold with this theory, and asserts that Cochrane was an Earth native, who moved to Alpha Centauri later in life. The first edition Chronology notes that Cochrane's invention of warp drive must have been at least 200 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and suggests a date of 2061, noting that Cochrane would be 31 that year.

The movie Star Trek: First Contact prominently features Cochrane's first successful warp flight. The film is set in 2063, two years after the Chronology suggestions, and therefore by the timeline Cochrane is 33. The actor who played Cochrane in that movie, James Cromwell, was 56 at the time of the film's release. The Encyclopedia notes the age issue, and claims that the Cromwell Cochrane had suffered from radiation poisoning, causing his aged appearance. Enterprise pins down Cochrane's disappearance to 2119, making Cochrane instead 31 at the time of First Contact.

Ordering of episodes

The production order of original series episodes differed greatly from the original broadcast order. The Chronology assumes the correct chronological order is production order. Episodes of the original series tend to be largely standalone and rarely make references to other episodes.[1]

For later series, the Chronology follows this model, except for obvious exceptions, such as "Symbiosis", an episode shot after Tasha Yar's death in "Skin of Evil" had been filmed, but featuring her. After the debut of DS9 (and therefore the start of a period where there were two ongoing series of Star Trek), the Chronology instead adopts ordering by airdates. The latest edition of the Chronology was published in 1996, and thus does not cover Star Trek episodes or films released after then.